Missouri Democratic Party

Updated on Dec. 3 to reflect the results of the party's office elections: After taking a beating in last month’s elections, top Missouri Democrats have picked new leaders charged with bringing the party out of the political wilderness.

Stunned by the magnitude of their Election Day losses, Missouri’s Democratic leaders are taking stock as they seek to regroup.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., says she’s in the midst of “a listening tour’’ to gauge where she and other party activists went wrong, and what needs to be done. But McCaskill emphasized in an interview that she doesn’t buy into the narrative that Missouri Democrats were punished at the polls for ignoring rural voters and working-class whites.

Updated July 21 with additional Mobilize Missouri endorsements. — The biggest races in August are getting all the attention. But a group of seats on the St. Louis Democratic Central Committee could prove to be just as important in the long run.

Candidates from across the city have their sights on being committeemen and committeewomen, in an effort to push for change in the party now and at future elections.

Updated June 13, 2016 with statement from Carrier, in response to Koster speech -- Over dinner and drinks Thursday night at Busch Stadium, hundreds of Missouri Democrats exuded more optimism than they have in years.

Everyone seemed happy with Hillary Clinton as their party’s presidential nominee. But many were even happier that Donald Trump is leading the opposition.

Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, hopes to get elected Saturday as a delegate from the 2nd Congressional District to this summer’s Republican presidential convention. But Onder is a supporter of GOP hopeful Ted Cruz, while all the 2nd District delegates will be bound to Trump, who carried the district and Missouri during the state’s March 15 presidential primary.

“If I am chosen on Saturday to go to Cleveland, on the first ballot, I’ll be voting for Donald Trump,’’ Onder said.

The Missouri Democratic Party has changed the name of its longstanding biggest event, traditionally known as the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, to honor instead the state’s most famous Democrat: Harry S Truman.

State Democratic Party chairman Roy Temple says the change was all about acknowledging Truman, a popular former president. But state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, who has called for the name-change for years, suspects the move also may be tied to her longstanding beef about naming the dinner after two presidents who owned slaves.

Embattled and accused of being irrelevant, Missouri’s two major political parties are beefing up their operations nonetheless in preparation for next year’s high-stakes elections.

That’s particularly true for the state’s Democratic Party, which already has taken on two staffers charged solely with assisting the party’s likely nominees for governor and the U.S. Senate: Chris Koster and Jason Kander.

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is calling for a sharp increase in the state’s tobacco tax — now the nation’s lowest — to pay for a scholarship program to lower tuition at the state’s colleges and universities.

As expected, leaders of the Missouri Democratic State Committee have re-elected Roy Temple as state party chairman, despite the party’s poor showing last fall.

Temple faced no major opposition during Saturday’s vote, held at the Truman Hotel in Jefferson City. He is close to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and state Attorney General Chris Koster, who had supported his initial ascension to the top party post in 2013.

St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Green was re-elected as the state party’s vice chairman.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. --The last time that new Missouri Democratic Party chairman Roy Temple held a key role in state politics, his party controlled the state House and Senate and all but one statewide office.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Jackson County Executive Director Mike Sanders just announced that he’s stepping down as chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party as of Aug. 24, a move that sets the stage for a new party chief who's likely to be closer to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, skipped this month’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner – the Missouri Democratic Party’s largest fundraiser – and says she has no intention of attending the event in the future unless one condition is met.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Casting their Republican counterparts as ineffectual extremists, some of Missouri’s top Democratic officials provided a blueprint of sorts at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner to gain even more ground in the Show Me State.

And Attorney General Chris Koster, a former Republican, pledged to put up a substantial amount of campaign money to help the cause.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Although Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will be the headliner at this Saturday’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner downtown, the real attraction for Missouri Democrats could well be the dinner-table talk about the direction of the state party.

Patrick will be joined by the state's top Democrats for what is traditionally the party's top fundraising event of the year. Always held in St. Louis, this year's dinner is at the Renaissance Grand hotel.

A judge has expunged the arrest record of a former executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party.

An order Friday by St. Louis Circuit Judge Robert Dierker says the arrest of Matthew Teter following a domestic incident was based on false information. The order also says there's no probable cause to believe he committed an offense and that no charges will be pursued.

Teter said he was forced out of his job at the Democratic Party in February 2012 after the arrest.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: When Chris Koster first ran for attorney general in 2008, the phrase "Koster the Imposter" was thrown around as commonly as promises to be tough on crime.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: In March 2005, former Sen. Jean Carnahan and Democratic consultant Roy Temple created quite a stir at Democrat Days in Hannibal when they announced the launch of the state's first major political blog, “FiredUp Missouri.”

The aim, the two said, was to use its web presence to daily promote Democratic ideals – and lampoon the opposition.

FiredUp’s creation came “at an important point in time,’’ said Temple in an interview this week. “Democrats were demoralized. They had just lost a governorship.”

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Amid all the attention to the recent comments by U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and Gov. Jay Nixon in support of gay rights, many have overlooked the first prominent Missouri Democrat who recently aired such sentiment:

Jason Rosenbaum is out this week, so we have St. Louis Public Radio's Marshall Griffin filling in. Marshall joins Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Beacon and Chris McDaniel of St. Louis Public Radio to discuss the week in politics.

On this week's show: Marshall fills us in on the first half of the legislative session, talking about proposed changes to taxes and tenured teachers, and then Jo discusses the developments with the Democrats' Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.

Missouri congressmen Lacy Clay and Russ Carnahan have some differences of opinion when it comes to the potential political impact of their Democratic primary battle.

Both are running for the Democratic nomination in the 1st congressional district, which Clay has represented since 2001. Carnahan decided to challenge Clay after Carnahan’s south St. Louis city and county district was split up following the 2010 census. Clay calls the situation “unfortunate".

The executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party has been placed on unpaid leave while St. Louis police investigate allegations of a domestic assault.

Police said Tuesday that they were called to a home listed as the address of Matthew Teter on Sunday, when a 31-year-old man reported that he had been assaulted by a 30-year-old man at that address. Police did not release the names of the people involved in the incident because the investigation is ongoing.

The state party says Matthew Teter began his new role Tuesday. He'll replace Brian Zuzenak, who is leaving March 31 after a transition period.

Missouri Democrats have undergone a leadership change after losses in the 2010 elections. Former State Auditor Susan Montee took over as chairwoman of the party in December, replacing Craig Hosmer. Montee also is an ally of McCaskill.